Episode 13 - Jared Smith - Creator Of SuperBowl 49 Nationwide Insurance Meme

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Oh yeah, we know what that sound means. This is Social Buzz on Air. What is happening, everybody? I'm your host, Sebastian Russ. Welcome to the show. My guest today, the Super Bowl just ended. It was a very social Super Bowl to say the least. People have a conversation during the Super Bowl, before the Super Bowl, after the Super Bowl, and of course, social media drives that conversation and keeps it consistent. But sometimes the conversation that starts on that Sunday evening doesn't really end for quite some time. That's exactly what happened with the multitude of Super Bowl ads that took place. Price tag this year, four and a half million dollars for 30 seconds. Brands were encouraged to spend their ideas and money wisely with that. The majority would agree that nationwide insurance is probably the biggest downer of the Super Bowl ad arena, if you will. Or there was a little comedy that was added to that. My guest today is Jared Smith. Jared's a development manager with Boomtown. That's kind of fun. More information at BoomtownRoy.com. That sites for realtors. They've also got a custom CRM for realtors. Sounds very interesting. Every realtor that I've ever met can totally use something like this. So be sure to check them out. I got uh I believe I got Jared on the line with us now. Jared, are you there?

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yes, sir. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

What's up, brother? How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Good, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Awesome. So you were uh sending a few tweets out on Sunday evening like the rest of the world, and you decided to create a meme, and from that, a lot happened. Why don't you tell us a story real quick?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

All right. So um, you know, every good meme comes with a little preparation, maybe. I don't know. Um, so you know, I was watching the game with everybody trading, you know, snark, as always, and uh um the nationwide commercial happened and it bummed all of us out. And uh, but I also saw some meme opportunity there. Uh some, you know, I saw a post, uh a post with the kid that says, you know, I was gonna watch Katy Perry's halftime show, but then I died in an accident. And I was like, okay, well, let me find a clean copy of the kid. You know, this might become a thing. Um, you know, it might just become something that we just, you know, we trade, you know, amongst me and my friends, you know, kind of funny, you know. And um so, you know, after a while, it was like, okay, I'm gonna put Twitter down and focus on the game. It was a really good game. And uh and then that last pass happened, you know, the the second and one call not to run it with Lynch and to um you know throw the pass in the end zone, and it was picked off um to seal the game for the Patriots. And uh I was like uh I saw that, you know, I saw the response on Twitter and it was like, oh my goodness, you know, I've got that kid on my desktop. Let me pull him into my editor. And so I added the words, you know, I would have run it with Lynch, uh, but I died. And uh hit tweet, and as expected, a few of my friends laughed, and then it moved beyond my friends, and then it moved very rapidly beyond my friends. Um and then for the next uh 24 hours or so, my Twitter mentions were mostly useless. So um yeah, it spread pretty far. Um and uh made a lot of people laugh. It made a few people question my taste, and uh somebody called me a savage, but I guess that's the name of the game. But uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

You can't keep everybody happy, especially when you're creating memes. You're gonna piss 50% off, if not more.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you're not I mean, at the end of the day, you know, if you're doing comedy and you're not making anybody mad, you know, what you then then you're probably doing it wrong.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

You got the wrong job, buddy. Yeah. So how far, how many retweets did this go? For those of you not familiar with with Twitter, just uh just hit just hit stop now and hang it up. Um uh how many retweets did you get uh on this? How many people favored it? How far did it really go? I know you've pulled some analytics on the on the actual tweets.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Yeah, so this morning, you know, as it as of right now, it's uh 20,700 tweet uh retweets um and over 15,000 favorites, and and that's just on the original tweet. Now there's plenty of people who did manual retweets. Um they might have added you know their two cents to it. Um and those got shared thousands and thousands of more times. Um there was an Instagram account, you know. Some of these Instagram accounts they pull these images down and you know, they don't give you the credit. I actually found out when somebody yelled at them to give me credit, which was awesome, but it had like 100,000 likes or close to that by now. Um so it spread around Instagram uh to many people. There was um it I heard from friends they saw it on Facebook before they even knew it was me, so it spread over there. It spread uh it got some votes on Reddit. I saw it um a modified version on the chive. Um so yeah, it it got out there uh in ways that I didn't quite expect.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

I think the only thing you forgot was the uh Boomtown logo. You might have been up for a promotion come Monday morning.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah, you know, well, they just gave me one. I just became the manager recently, so I don't think they want to accelerate that too fast. But uh but yeah, you never know. Maybe marketing manager, I don't know. But um you know, with those I say I I say director of memes. Oh, there you go. Uh so what's funny is that we had a uh meme wall and we've remodeled the office a little bit, and so we're gonna have a conference room that is for that is the meme room, and I'm going to get mine in a gold-framed meme room, uh, meme hall of fame, so to speak, uh, in there. So that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

That sounds very exciting. Well, welcome, welcome to the future. The Jetsons have nothing on us. We have meme rooms. And meme awards, huh?

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Uh I guess. I I didn't know meme awards were a thing until they told me that's what they were doing yesterday. So uh kind of fun, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Well, when you look at brands being able to capitalize, we look at what Oreo did last year. I don't, you know, most of the guys that are in our space, you know, that that that whole scenario uh stepped on a lot of feet and pissed a lot of people off, but those are the people that didn't come up with the idea. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I don't give a flying rip how many people were in that room, how many executives were in that room, how much additional budget it costs to be able to execute that. That is to date the best example of a brand being able to market in real time. You marketed yourself in real time. That's that that that's the difference between a brand taking note from that. The reason that I'm I'm shedding light on this is that brands need to really understand the power of being able to not leverage large events like the Super Bowl and the Grammys to be able to talk about your product and shove your stupid message down people's throats. It's there to become part of the conversation. So if and when an opportunity presents itself, like the lights go out, or a horrible play happens or a horrible call happens in the Super Bowl, you're readily available. What are your thoughts on brands and real-time marketing?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Uh I mean, I'm with you 100%. You know, don't don't don't hawk something at me. Let's have some fun. You know, I I loved what Oreo did. Uh I thought that was brilliant last year. I mean, and and and think about, you know, you want to talk about the budget to do that. I mean, I think that's a no-brainer. I mean, you know, it took maybe 20, 25 minutes of somebody's time and they didn't have to spend $4.5 million to do it, right? And they got so I they won the Super Bowl last year. I I think there's no doubt about it. You know, uh, you know, at least in the circles that I'm in, the best commercial Super Bowl was the one that didn't make it to air. Was it was the one that spread virally in social media and took advantage of that. Rapid response is key, you know, and and that goes, that's not just marketing and brands. I mean, that's that you know, that's news. You know, getting it right obviously is important too. Um, but you know, being able to rapidly respond to things and and really become a that part of that conversation is you know, it's absolutely critical. Uh it's, you know, it separates, you know, it shows that you know what you're doing. I think you know, people people, you know, digital natives like me, I guess that's a great, the best way I can describe it, you know, we don't want to be like directly marketed to, you know, at least in my case. I like being able to have you know a conversation with a brand, you know, and you know, if it's something especially that I like, um, to be able to say that, you know, I talk to them, I talk to that company and you know, and in in a conversational and nice way about something that I enjoy, you know, something that you know that brings joy to my life, I think is uh I think that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah, I do too. And I and I and I think it's that emotional connection that we all want and desire. And if brands are doing it right, they'll they provide that opportunity to be able to connect with them uh and be part of their ecosystem and their community before I mean the buying decision's already been made, in my opinion. If I'm gonna buy your product or use your service, I'm gonna do it when the time is ready and when I'm ready to be able to go ahead and do that. You wrapping your arms around me as a community and providing value to me on a daily basis, listening to me, engaging with a conversation that has nothing to do with me buying your product, I believe is is is is is the focal point.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Absolutely. There's no doubt about it. What was your favorite Super Bowl commercial? Um I would have to say it was uh Walter White and in the pharmacy counter. Um I'm a huge Breaking Bad fan, and it just warmed my heart so much to see uh Brian Cranston playing that role again. Um that one that one was the one that really stuck out for me uh more than any of the others. Why did it stick out? I don't know. It it it struck a chord. I just really I'm a big Breaking Bad fan, and I love the way that they uh I love the way that they played on that. I love the way that you know, you know, he was like, I'm sort of Greg. And you know, uh showing that, you know, you can kind of, you know, easurance did it. I mean, and and a lot of people were like, well, eSurance, you know, we don't know that it was eSurance, but man, breaking bad. And so, you know, so that again, that's the risk you run. Um, you know, when you do something like that where you you you have somebody at the pharmacy counter and you're making a comparison, but you don't to like car insurance in this case. You know, yeah. But but but it's not top of mind. Of course. You know, and so I looked at it, you know, purely for the entertainment value. I I would say that um, you know, the uh eurance with uh Walter White was great. Um the fiat one was uh pretty funny. Uh I can see some additional explaining having to be done to kids um after that, or maybe just uh go in the other room. Let me time for you know, maybe it's time for bed, something like that. Or it's time for a talk about the birds and the bees. Yeah, that too. Yeah, that's a good point. Um, you know, we've uh we've already had them confront their mortality earlier, so now let's talk about the birds and the bees. I mean, it's a whole educational Super Bowl. Um what did you think?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

What did you think about the puppy in the Clydesdales? I mean, Budweiser Bud Budweiser very rarely uh misses it.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Oh no, they they never miss it, yeah. And and uh the puppy in the Clydesdales, I mean, uh I have three dogs. I mean, yeah, to say that I wasn't moved, it would, you know, it the only person that I don't think wouldn't be moved would have been the Android data in Star Trek. Um, I mean, I I think it was moving. It was great.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

By the way, if you're listening to this and you and you didn't watch the Super Bowl or any of the Super Bowl commercials, um, well, then again, you're probably not listening to this if that's not the case, but um, we'll be sending out a link, we'll be tweeting out a link. Uh I think there's a recap of all the commercials um that someone took the time to uh kindly put together and throw on YouTube so you'll be able to go back through. Um I I I don't remember seeing the the uh the McDonald's commercial, and I really don't care because they're their food's horrible. I don't care how creative they are, then they're not gonna convince me to get to to go eat there. But um did did you happen to see it? And do you have an opinion about it?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah, I did see it. And uh my tweet about it was uh paying with loving is illegal in some states, right? Um and so that was that was my tweet about it. It was like, oh uh hugs for artery disease, you know, and and so um, you know, yeah, I I mean uh they they're playing off the I'm loving it, and I get it, and and I'm honestly surprised it took them this long to get there. Uh but you know, I mean it didn't, you know, I I'll honestly say that you know I have eaten more at McDonald's since I got Apple Pay than in the like the 10 years prior, which is kind of sad. Um I think but I I think that the adoption of Apple Pay has done more to boost McDonald's in my mind. Then again, I'm weird, but uh than any of the commercials or marketing would do. Well, I mean, you know, normals is setting on your dryer, Jared.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Right, exactly. That you got it. Well, the name like Jared, you should be using Apple Pay at Subway.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

That's a good point. No, I haven't been there in a while. I need to I I do need to go to Subway. That's a good that's a good call.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

We have uh we've we've covered just about uh uh every topic pertaining to advertising, uh food, and uh memes on this episode. That's what it's that's what it's really all about here. Well, uh listeners, you can follow Jared and uh his ongoing digital travels on Twitter at at JaredW Smith. That's correct, right, Jared?

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yep, it's all one. There's another Jared W. Smith. It's Jared underscore W underscore Smith, and he's great on web accessibility uh as well. So um so sometimes we get confused, and sometimes I'll get emailed from him and it's like, hey man, I gotta afford this. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

So if you have any uh Super Bowl-related questions, meme-related questions, maybe social media related questions, you want to direct direct uh Jared's way, uh send him out, send him a tweet. Uh be sure to uh tag the show at social buzz on air as well, too. Well, hey, listen, buddy, I know you're a busy guy and you gotta get back in the mix of things over there, but thanks for uh carving out some time to hang out and uh share your story and congrats on that uh Twitter success there. We uh we like we we celebrated all every victory we get with this whole social media world uh because uh people are just starting to understand it.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Absolutely. Thanks so much, Sebastian. I really appreciate the uh the time and it was a lot of fun talking.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Absolutely, man. Come back soon.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Will do.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Well, that does it for this episode of Social Buzz on Air. I'm Sebastian Ross, signing off from our studio here in downtown Miami, inside Keyworking, a convenient co-working space in downtown Miami, located directly across the street from the American Airlines Arena. More information at keyworking.com. We'll talk to you next time.